Sergio García's status as a world-class player has never been in doubt but now he can be marked down as a world-class glutton for punishment. "Give me a one-shot lead on the last hole on the tournament right now and I would take it," he said yesterday when asked about his prospects of winning the 89th PGA Championship, which starts today at Southern Hills .

Brave words from a man who less than a month ago stood on the final tee at Carnoustie needing a par to win the Open Championship. He walked off the green with a bogey and a gnawing sense that the impending play-off with Padraig Harrington was not going to be to his liking. So it proved. To the Irishman went the claret jug and the endless celebrations, to the Spaniard the crushing weight of disappointment and the opprobrium of just about everyone who heard his post-defeat remarks - insinuating his golfing life was cursed by bad luck.

There was a time when the Spaniard's response to such criticism would have been to disappear further into a shell of self-pity. To his credit he spoke at length yesterday about that fateful day in Scotland. It was also to his credit that he gave every impression of a man whose spirit remains unbroken by the experience.

"To be in the lead at the Open for all four days is really going to help me in the future to be a lot more calm, be a lot more within myself when I get in that position," he said. "So I don't have a doubt that eventually I'm going to win a major. It's just a matter of giving myself chances, and I'll definitely give myself a lot of them.

"I feel like I should have won at least more than one by now, but it hasn't happened yet. The only thing I can do is keep putting myself in that position and it will happen sometime."

There is no better time than the present, of course. The course at Southern Hills, with its narrow fairways and receptive greens, certainly plays into one of García's strengths, accurate driving, and helps one of his relative weaknesses, putting. He is one of the fitter players on tour so he should be able to cope the 100 degree-plus heat forecast for the next four days. And as he kept repeating, he always feels supremely confident.

Unfortunately for the Spaniard, he does not have a monopoly on confidence at this level. Look down the driving range at any major championship and there are a couple of dozen players who believe they can win, including the likes of Justin Rose.

A year ago the Englishman was ranked outside the world's top 100 and barely made it into the field at the 2006 PGA at Medinah. This year he is ranked 16th and after contending at all three of the majors has arrived at the fourth believing victory in within his embrace.

"This year has taken a lot of the mystery out of winning major championships - it has shown me you don't have to be doing extraordinary things, you just have to keep it all together under the pressure," Rose said. "That's what winning a major is all about. It doesn't always have to look as spectacular as sometimes Tiger makes it look. Sometimes great golf is boring golf. Majors certainly reward that and this week won't be any different. I'll be playing percentages which for me means not hitting that many drivers."

That sounded like a wise strategy. If only Woods was not around this week, it might even work.

But then it was ever thus, although the likes of Rose and García can take heart from Woods' failure so far this year to add to his 12 major titles. Yet for all that the world No1 arrived in Tulsa as the overwhelming favourite after crushing the field at Akron by eight shots at the weekend. Nothing has changed since then to alter expectations. Indeed as the week has progressed so too has the impression this is his tournament to lose.

"My game does feel pretty good," Woods said yesterday. "I made some strides last week and I'm heading in the right direction and really looking forward to this week. It's been an interesting year. If I've hit it well, I haven't putted well. If I've hit it poorly, I've made everything. I just can't get the two together somehow. It just hasn't materialised consistently enough."